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PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 12:59 pm 
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Just an FYI, after talking to Celeborn yesterday, he has been reading this thread, and is pondering ways to implement some of the suggestions offered. So keep the ideas coming, you aren't going unheard. I can't gaurentee everything you ask for will get in, but your posts definately aren't wasted :)

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 2:32 pm 
Hmm... I agree that even though by default of advantages/disadvantages given to pixies/gnomes are better than most other races, however, like what err i think it wuz avestifal said, i like to put some effort into my chars =P. So I guess thats what the challenge in DL is now- to use a purportedly weaker race/class and turn it into something that is WOW.

I think it should be noted that although there are alot of pixies and gnomes etc, at least its heartening to see that not ALL the powerful ones are pixies/gnomes... like Lingolas, Laurana...

Another point is, stop thinking about power.. only a few select people bother abt being the most powerful =P there are other aspects to the game... As long as I can fight a few mobs that i want to fight, i want to whack the asses of ppl i want to whack, i dun really care abt being the most powerful.


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PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 3:19 pm 
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I haven't entirely been keeping up with this thread, but let me offer an idea that will be immensely unpopular:

In my opinion, the game is perfectly easy to play with ANY RACE. Some may need some tweaks to make them more useful, but I feel the game's difficulty isn't really that hard to begin with. The idea should be explored to balance by tweaking gnomes and pixies to be less powerful, while making some more useful bonuses to the weaker races.

The game will be too easy if ALL the races are as powerful as pixies/gnomes currently are. Some races need to be improved, but I honestly believe the gnomes and pixies need to be weakened somewhat as well to truly bring balance.

Making all the races equal isn't the same as providing balance, really. Game balance is far more intricate.

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 3:48 pm 
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Actually I believe all races are balanced right now... Its just people dont understand how to USE the other races to their optimum efficency.

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 6:33 pm 
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Sasia wrote:
Another point is, stop thinking about power.. only a few select people bother abt being the most powerful =P there are other aspects to the game... As long as I can fight a few mobs that i want to fight, i want to whack the asses of ppl i want to whack, i dun really care abt being the most powerful.


No. If person A spends X amount of time on character C, and person D spends the same amount of time as person A, on character E, but one picked a Pixie and the other picked a Lizardman, WHY SHOULD THE LIZARDMAN GET A HANDICAP?

If you feel you have reached the level of playing that you need a handicap to have fun, that is an ENTIRELY different issue, and doesn't even belong in this thread. Maybe you could choose various handicaps on character creation, and it could automatically list them in the upper part of your whois, I think that could be cool, like stat penalties, or other various penalties that you could just choose to take if you wanted. But none of that should restrict your race choice! Races should be balanced, heck, it's just a RACE! Think about it!

Zeraphin:

I think you should go back and read some of my posts, because you are completly missing the point as well. Racial balance has absolutly nothing to do with 'easy' or 'hard', it is exactly what I described to Sasia, an issue of equality. Game difficulty can be tweaked by altering the mobs, not the races.

What you are proposing is a classic pendulum swing of power, which I hate to say to you, is very very bad. You see it everywhere, in every game. Something like a race or a class is too powerful so it gets nerfed to the point where a different race or class is better...Then what do people do? They make a new character. Not to say it would be your fault that they made the character, but it isn't the best way to approach the problem.

The only way to fix this *INEVITABLE* problem, is to make ALL the races less extreme. As long as they have extreme abilities, there will be cries and complaints about racial balance issues, caused by the fact that as long as they are extreme, they are impossible to keep balanced. If the racial differences are subtle, then there wont be this problem. Even if one race turns out being more powerful than another, the difference will be so slight that you can just pick whatever one you want without knowing that you are giving yourself a handicap.

If any of you are wondering about my meaning of the word extreme, it is this definition:

3 : situated at the farthest possible point from a center.

With the center being a race with no abilities at all, with all stats at 50. I do not want to see the races be that boring, but subtle stat differences and minor abilities like aquabreath (Lizardman), prospecting (Dwarf), 5% bonus or penalty to magic(Ideas?)...Most if not all of the human starsign bonuses would fall under that category: Subtle.

And then you mentioned that theres a lot more to balance than the races are concerned. Yes, I already adressed that a few posts ago, but of course you mentioned that you hadn't been keeping up with this thread, so I will fill you in on what I said.

I basically said that game balance could be compared to an algrebra problem with 3+ variables in it, with races being just one of those variables. Instead of trying to throw random numbers into the racial variable, and hoping that it will eventually become balanced through trial and error, you could just *ELIMINATE* the variable by making the races play a small roll instead of a large one.

Kiasyn: You are wrong.

~Ocardus/Ridley


Last edited by weems on Fri Sep 24, 2004 6:40 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 6:36 pm 
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Ok, because for some reason god HATES me I'm typing this...AGAIN.

(zeraphin ths forums are buggy, if you're not active for a certain amount of time they sign you out and your post is lost cause it says you have to log in, and you lost the post you might have been typing. I'm not enthused.)

A) The races are not perfectly balanced. It's not a matter of playing to there "optimum efficiency". Some are flat out inherently better than others.

B) I agree that leveling in itself is easy and not very hard with any of the races.

C) I'm going into less detail because it was a long arse reply.



Orcs- Feral rage near death, cool, but still dead (as was mentioned above) perhaps just make feral rage like a starsign ability? Or like lay on hands, and it just gives a +2 dam roll p/ level bonus (up to 100) and +5 hp bonus per level up to 250 hp at lvl 50. That would make these guys brawnier and more likely to be played. (granted it wouldn't do much for their looks but no one chooses orcs to look pretty)

Ogre- The bonuses/penalties drive away too many.

Elf- Fine race as it is.

Lizardmen- Aquabreath makes them good lowbie wall punchers...that's about it. Perhaps turn these into Half-Dragons with wings and claws on their hands to use as weapons in the event they don't have one. Maybe a bonus to their mobility to reflect the armor their scales give them, or give them like 30% slash resistance instead.

Gerps- Good the way they are.

Phasians- As I said before do not give back the ability to RW out of battles, that just lets people be cheesy when it comes to fighting. (especially during guildwars etc.) Maybe let them buy pillars at Half-off or something, or let them enchant their sigil tattoo with stuff.

Dwarves- I see nothing wrong with them, the reason I don't play them is I don't like playing short, fat, smelly, subterranean drunkards.

Trolls- I suggest faster limb regen, and higher regen perhaps 1 per level.
Battles are usually over too fast to wait for the limbs to regen.

Pixies- Ditch their Kinshape ability, make them have a disadvantage so that they have to use glory or warmonger to get up to middle sized. This way it's harder for a pixie to play a warrior, though if you want to you could, it'd just eb making it harder on yourself. And drop their magic complexity bonus to +15% and remove their innate MR.

Gnome- Ditch their magic complexity bonus. Gnomes are craftsmen and tinkerers, they make magic items which often blow up in their face (the Magic Resistance is good for protection from that). Perhaps give them some inherent crafting bonus and keep their MR, and their free identify.

Humans as a race are cool, I have played practically every starsign at least to lvl 30. all except for "the shadow, the beauty, and the elemental ones" the starsigns are a good concept problem is; too many of the bene's are only really noticeable early on.

Here are my suggestions:

Void: This is a well balanced penalty, no magic against you, no magic for you. But the prob is, a Gnome (as weemster pointed out) is practically a voider on its own w/ the ability to cast spells. Same with "The Shield".

Avatar: This only serves an RP purpose, I have no idea how to fix this, but there's no real benefit.

Tower: Too little, maybe make it 12 spaces of sight and the mobility and you got an actually useful ability for exploring.

Furnace: Change the name, keep the penalty, make it 8 or 10 complexity. This would provide a suitable advantage vs. the other classes. One that could combat pixies and gnome-ness.

Unicorn: I've played one of these (briefly) and I can vouch that the 25% damage is pretty much a death sentence. I suggest making it 10% more damage instead of 25%. And maybe increase mana cost to 2/3 of the actual cost.

Clover: Good skill, leave it as it is.

The elemental starsigns: Pretty useless really...
I suggest keeping the current abilities they have and ADD:
Water: Aqua Breath
Cyclone: Astral Walk for free.
Sun: Regen during daytime (1 per 2 levels up to 25)
Landslide: 2 dam reduction per level up to 100

Moon: Odd, either remove it or instead make it so this starsign is effected by lycanthropy and has a werewolf form that adds 3 feet to height and gives +50 dam roll bonus +2 str +2 dex +2 con and -8 char.
Perhaps Wolf form only during night? Also- Humans only would bring more human characters to the game.

Fist: +2 ar and +10 dam roll is only really noticeable early on. I suggest instead of +10, make it +2 dam roll per level up to 100. Not a catastrophically large ability, and makes it a desireable one.

The Shadow: Invisibility? pretty useless. It's not really needed early on, and later on you get it on EQ. I suggest that when you turn on the starsign it gives the character sneak and hide.

Guardian Spirit: This is very useless, mostly because those exp losses don't really hurt. I suggest no exp loss penalty to fleeing or dieing etc, however, for every 100 points lost, you lose 50 favor. So if you lost 5k exp you'd lose 2.5k favor. That way the Spirit seems live a little perk from your deity.

Comet: I made a "viking" character who had this ability and it's only noticeable when you're waiting 8 seconds between attacks. It should get better with level, 1 speed per level up to 50. that would make this useful even in epics and wouldn't give anyone anything they don't get from juices or spells.

Hospic: Good ability, even if you're not a pure fighter, sometimes it helps to have a quick hit of HP that's better than your heal can provide. My chief complaint is that there's no provision for vampirized hospics. Make it work with blood as well.

The Shield: This ability is good, despite weemster's distaste over it. I have played one, it basically gives you a voider's ability but the ability to cast spells. The penalties aren't so severe that they can't be worked around.

The Reed: Pretty much useless, the bene's are far too small. Make it an 8 - 10 mobility bonus and you've got yourself a useful starsign.

The Beauty: I really see no reason why this starsign should even exist. I'd say that its ability should be that you don't have to pay any taxes at all to make it worthwhile.


Anyway, the races aren't perfectly balanced and here's why:

A level 50/50/50 warrior styled troll would easily lose to a level 50/50/50 pixie if they both had the same eq, and were both of roughly the same skill level (which is quite likely to happen). If they were perfectly/sufficiently balanced, this would not happen unless the troll was payed very poorly and the pixie very well. An example of how evident this was was when the oracles were able to crush everyone and everything simply by spamming breath. And then the conjurers came along which were pretty much slightly slower pixies who liked to use swords. When one race can be played by people of low skill easily enough to thump on most of the veterans like they were level 40, that is not balanced. I don't see how being able to set up triggers or tickers or macros or whatever you want to call it so that you "c breath" twice, then throw in a heal, then c breath twice again and do that through the battle makes a character as balanced as say a troll that has to beat on something for 10 times as long because the monster regens too fast.

And in the end, this isn't about difficulty in the game, all races are easy to level up in the game, because leveling only takes certain skills: The ability to think, the ability to find the areas to level, the ability to find what eq you need, and the ability to buy healing potions and bandages.

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 6:42 pm 
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Weakening some races and breaking up others at the same time, balancing in the middle, is a far better solution than bringing everything up to the exact same level of "powerful", then balancing the ENTIRE game around that fact.

There are well over 15000 individual mobiles. We can balance the races to be slightly less powerful but equal, without having to otherwise alter fundamental code or spend hundreds of hours altering every area.

The reason you so often see "nerfing" of things like races or classes is because the sheer scale of balancing the rest of the game around super powerful (And continuously growing more powerful, it can be assumed) races or classes.

If race group A is middle power, Race group B is super powerful (gnomes, pixies), and race group C is near uselessly weak, it seems the best course would be to adjust group b downward to match group a, and to bring group c up to group a.

If group B is so much more fundamentality powerful compared to other races that for sheer easy of gameplay they are chosen most often, they need to be weakened, even if just a little. Extreme nerfing doesn't have to occur, but you're basicly saying that its better to completely redesign entire systems within the game rather than weaken a single small facet.

To address the algrebra problem, eliminating the variable can be done many different ways. It is obvious to me that bringing all races up to the level gnomes and pixies enjoy would require the entire game to be altered for balance and difficult.

For 6-7 years I've worked on game balance in MUDs and other projects. Players always seem to think balancing should only makes things MORE POWERFUL, never weaker. Its an understandable sentiment, it sucks to be made less powerful, but making everything rest JUST AS POWERFUL is not really balancing. You've balanced the races, and unbalanced the rest of the game.

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 7:00 pm 
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true but I personally am under the impression that pixies won't be fixed, and they already unbalance the game.

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 7:02 pm 
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Holy crap Zeraphin. No offense, but I just lost a lot of respect for you, because throughout this entire thread, I have been suggesting that...

ALL RACES BE MADE MUCH MUCH WEAKER.

And now you are implying that I want to see them all uber powerful. NO! I want them to be reduced in power to a point where they all have LITTLE TINY bonuses, enough so that they are unique, but do not affect your choice to a high degree.

If you please, READ what I post before insulting my knowledge of the concept of balance.

Thank you,
~Ocardus/Ridley


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PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 7:06 pm 
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One last post on why I don’t think the races need to be brought into balance, and the history of what happened to D&D is the perfect example, thanks for reminding me of it Weems, although Avestifal already has grasped of my point, let me continue. Yes 3rd Edition D&D has brought the races into balance, but this was not always so. When D&D first came out, in 1974 I think it was, the entire game was contained in 3 small pamphlets you could slip in your coat pocket, go to a friends house and play. A fun and challenging adventure could be made up on the fly, with little preparation on the DM’s part. But the races and classes in the game were far from balanced on purpose. Humans were the supreme race with no limit on the level the could reach or the damage they could inflict, it was not uncommon to see level 50 to 100 humans whereas the other races were limited in not only their level, but the classes they could chose. An elf was limited to level 11 as a mage, meaning his fireball could only do 11d6 of dam Vs 50d6 or more for a human mage. The game was also weighted in favor of Good Vs Evil. New players were advised to start with a human. Once they learned to play well, or grew tired of blasting whole towns with their fireballs, they could play one of the more challenging races. There was no need to tweak the monsters with this setup.

D&D gained in popularity and people started meeting to play at Gencon, a D&D convention of sorts. But players were not happy with the weaker races so they were allowed to rise a little higher in level and the endless line of additions, supplements, etc started. New and more powerful monsters were needed to keep the game challenging. Some of the new versions of the game came and went so quick that no one noticed them. Does anyone remember the Basic D&D game system? By the end of 2nd Edition D&D it was completely out of hand. A collector friend of mine has an entire bookcase devoted just to 2nd Edition. The game play had become a joke with players running around the outer planes slaying the Gods. That was not the only effect of the changes to the game, gone were the days of a fun and challenging gaming session on a moments notice. Now the DM needed to work for a week to set up an adventure for a night of gaming, unless he was running a game for beginners. That brings us up to 3rd Edition.

When Wizards of the Coast announced that they had bought the rights to D&D they stated their plans for fixing this mess on their web site. They stated that they were going to bring back simplicity and balance to the game. No longer will you need a vast array of books and conflicting rules to play. That noble thought did not last long. Soon new feats, classes and prestige classes were added. But the classes and races are balanced. This is a good thing for those new to the game. However an experienced player can quickly build a character that can slay all in their path unless the DM goes to a great deal of work to make it challenging for them. To keep experienced players in check the DM must apply the player character template to every monster and NPC that the players may cross. If you have made a character for 3rd Edition, you know how much work this is. Now imagine having to do this for 50 or more monsters and NPCs and then he must keep track of all this during the game, it puts a tremendous workload on the DM. One that most inexperienced DM’s can not handle and the older ones consider not worth the effort. Which is why I and about 7 other old DM’s and players I know now play on DL. Take workload on the DM and change it to workload on the server and caretakers and you see where I am headed.

Now how does this relate to DL? When I first started playing here gnomes were considered one of the worthless races. I did not get to play one before they were tweaked to improve them. Before that Pixies and Elves were considered the greatest races of Alora. Yeah pixies still rock, I deleted mine cause he was BORING to play, no challenge at all. The first D&D was not balanced because players are not balanced, and it worked because it offered something for everyone. Some like to reach the pinnacle of power, others like a challenge, and new players need a chance to live long enough to learn how to play without getting discouraged. Races and classes may need minor tweaking to reach this end, just lets not over do it. Perhaps we should put a difficulty rating on races like we did on classes. Not all change is bad, the mini map has saved me from having to hand draw maps of all the areas, though I do wish it did not show the entrance to some of the previously hidden areas. The new craft system has made every race and class more powerful Vs mobs, regardless of how they compare to each other. Feedback from players to the caretakers happen at a much faster rate on DL than it did for D&D. Players will always ask for more, but giving them what they want often leads to other problem. I do not want DL to go down the same path that D&D did, cause there is no other MUD out there that can offer me the quality of game play we have here. In the end though it is Celeborn alone who decides what changes are best, I just want him to know that not all of us want super characters.

Thank you Zeraphin, Kiasyn, and Sasia. You all posted after I started composing this post at home, and pasting it in, I type real slow so that is easier for me. You all see some of my points, but I am posting it anyway, it took to long to do. And I again wish to apologize for being so rude on my first post.
Arureal the absent-minded elf


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PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 7:15 pm 
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Arureal, please refer to the 'Sasia' section on my post thats right below kiasyn's little quip. The part about handicaps.

Thank you.
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 7:20 pm 
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weems wrote:
Holy crap Zeraphin. No offense, but I just lost a lot of respect for you


I'm sorry if you feel so.

weems wrote:
And now you are implying that I want to see them all uber powerful. NO! I want them to be reduced in power to a point where they all have LITTLE TINY bonuses, enough so that they are unique, but do not affect your choice to a high degree.


I'm not responding just to you, though it may have seemed that way since I posted immediately afterwards. I post from work a good deal and today has been a busy day, excuse me if I skim posts somewhat.

I constantly (Or did in the past, less so in recent times) strive to make the game harder. It used to be that there were tons of mobiles, prior to Epics and such, that took 7-8 tri-avatars to kill. To my knowledge, there are none of those now. Hence, my main point was that any balancing will have to include weakening of Pixie and gnome.

I was mainly responding to you in regards to stating that weakened the most powerful races is a horrible problem. "Nerfing" is a necesasry part of the balancing process, unfortunately in most games it goes to far and always involved strengthening somethign else at the same, ie, just switching which is most powerful. Balancing has to ALWAYS be done in steps. If you are weakening something, you HAVE to re-evaluate things afterwards. You can't say, take 50% str here and give 50% there. You've overbalanced, gone too far. Take 50%, THEN, if there is still an issue, take further action. You can't do too much at once.

From my position, as well, nothing can be looked at as simply "balancing races" ... The basic concept of what your saying is understandable.. Make all races equal, and they no longer matter because any of them will work just as well as another. But you can't do that just by itself, you have to balance them in regards to the rest of the game as well. Maybe its a two step process, but game difficulty is part of the balance and cannot be ignored. Too often it is.

It peeves me greatly whenever I hear someone say "DL is so much harder than other muds"... I simply can't understand them, DL is easy as hell in a lot of regards, especially compared to stock SMAUG.

Its impossible for me to look at this problem as seperate from basic game balance, because its what my job entails. I had no hand in most of the bonuses that the races currently enjoy, I was on hiatus at the time. Most of them are extreme, such as the magical abilities of pixie and gnomes. The first step is to bring those two in line with the other races. Then you can look at, as a whole, making races play a smaller role.

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Zeraphin, I am getting the feeling you would agree with most, if not ALL of my prior points that I made in this thread...

Please..PLEASE, go back and read my posts, completly, don't skim.


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PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 7:52 pm 
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weems wrote:
Zeraphin, I am getting the feeling you would agree with most, if not ALL of my prior points that I made in this thread...

Please..PLEASE, go back and read my posts, completly, don't skim.


Find me some free time :) A check for about $1000 would do, I could take a week or two off work to more fully read all posts :P

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Zeraphin wrote:
weems wrote:
Zeraphin, I am getting the feeling you would agree with most, if not ALL of my prior points that I made in this thread...

Please..PLEASE, go back and read my posts, completly, don't skim.


Find me some free time :) A check for about $1000 would do, I could take a week or two off work to more fully read all posts :P



PFFFffft...It wouldnt take that long. 10 mins. Probably less. Read them tonight after you get out of work...Please.

~Ocardus/Ridley


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PostPosted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 11:30 pm 
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Weems, I got the wrong impression from your earlier post also, and I did read it, otherwise I would not have made that first stupid post of mine. So it is not Zeraphin’s fault he got the wrong impression also. Now that I know better from your latter posts, I will quit harping on the subject. Perhaps we all should take more care reviewing our posts before we put them up. Besides the fact that I am poor on a keyboard, I don’t want to make another mistake like I did with my first post. So I am doing my posts on word at home, and then pasting it to the forum. Don’t want to make myself look stupid too many times in one day. :oops:
Arureal the absent minded elf


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PostPosted: Sun Sep 26, 2004 7:20 am 
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Ocardus, this thread too me about 30 minutes to read.

probably because its 2 am now. im tired. went groundhog hunting all day today on 4 hours of sleep.

Here is my input on races:

a 20(+!)% bonus in anything is just entirely too much. 20% of 100 is 20. 120 is considerably more than 100. you can apply this to any race that has a 20% or more skill bonus.

Sure, a big assed bonus like that looks nice on paper, i agree. pixies should be uber spell casters. i agree from a rp standpoint that they should have a bonus. but a bonus that large throws everything out of whack because the number is entirely too large. 20% of something is a lot.

what happened if 20% of your pay was cut, zera? :) or if you got 25% more?

The biggest reason i picked a Half Elf years ago was because of the RP aspect. I like being a crossbreed (excuse my language, but I am one in real life. :)). I dont mind being a race that has few (!) bonuses. It allows me to sit back and, from my point of view, take in the sights. heres what i gathered:

as previously stated, most human starsigns are worthless. i completely agree more. what seems to appear happened to these starsigns is celeborn was either tired when he did it, or he had a REALLY, REALLY cool idea that he either hasnt had time to finish or just never got around to it, or completely forgot about. I'm human too, dude. I make mistakes sometimes also. Thats part of learning.

Making a mistake and not correcting your mistake 2 years after making said mistake doesnt make things better.

Aurureal, Gnomes have been good ever since they got those bonuses. You werent around for the uber gnome people. People just went for races they know had bonuses (pixie?) or races that had cool (!) stats (irl runewalk O COOL).

Ill end it as this.

Meh is a half elf. he gains following bonuses:

Innate infrared vision.
a BIG map. i can see almost 50 spaces across and 25 spaces vertical, day or night, when i am flying (why do you think i can find stuff so damned fast when i am on him ?:)). my map is probably about half the size of an immortal map, and that makes me laugh.

If i would have rebirthed meh into an elf, i would be a hell of a lot more powerful right now. period. if i rebirthed into a pixie, i would be even more powerful. if i was a gnome, well..you get the picture (this always made me wish that i did rebirth, but now im pretty glad that i didnt).

My complexities cap at 59 with no int/wis gear. 63 with 50 int/wis. no big deal. if i was a different race, id have that standard complexity with a bonus (a 20% bonus with 63 complexity is >>>12.6<<< complexity. 12.6! with 25% it would be 15.75. im not sure if the fractions count as 1 or if they are just floor()'d, but a 12 and +15 complexity bonus is absolutely too large of a bonus if you want a 'balanced game.' please correct me if im wrong im my math. once again its 2am

i agree that unfortunately, part of balancing is nerfing. unfortunately again, your job as immortals is to balance the game as best as you can without pissing the players off to much. when you upset people, they find somewhere else to play. i can name at least 7 players off hand who now play some where else because what was said to them about changes by immortals. maybe they deserved to go? they probably mouthed off anyways. i hope you understand the point im trying to make (sometimes what is said about the change (smart mouthed immortals. im not going to name names. i respect you all too much to start pointing fingers. try to take this as a collective 'my bad,' please.) is worth than the actual change itself. i love what you guys have done to the game. i bet you that im not the only one. i also bet you that there are just as many people on the other side of the room though)

This is just me ranting. Ill get to solutions (! omg, its meh, actually THINKING ABOUT SOMETHING CONSTRUCTIVE. thats as sign of the apocylapse. dont say i didnt warn you) after i go to bed. I am so tired right now.

OHAY -Meh TEH INTERNET IRL

fake edit: didnt realize how long this post was. sorry for the book :)

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Last edited by mehownzu on Mon Oct 04, 2004 6:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Sep 26, 2004 2:22 pm 
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Sorry to interrupt the flame war, but I have a few things I would like to interject. Forgive me if I lack a certain coherency, but I'm sleepy. Also, I skimmed the first 10 posts and it seemed to be the same thing repeated over and over again... I dont want to name names, but c'mon people, the horse is dead. Quit kicking it, you made your point.

So, I'm gonna make this quick since its 6:30 am and I still haven't gone to bed yet *yawns*

1. Sasia - awwww I feel all warm and fuzzy now. you think im powerful :) *dances*

2. Pixies/gnomes - No thoughts as of yet. My gnome is a level 46 rogue and by the time I get around to epic levels with her, the bonuses for gnomes will prolly be nerfed. Pixies? Pfft. They're only good when I manage to catch one in my flyswatter. Crunchy wings though. Very good deep fried in batter. YUM!

3. Elves - I have one. I like my elf. And once I get her levelled up she'll be badass :D

4. Phasians - whee. im blue. im smurfy. I have a jewel in my head. Aside from the runewalk capabilities, Phasians are just blue humans. I think at minimum the stats should be changed a bit, give phasians some stat bonuses, theyre so bland and even. Oh yeah, and the idea of RW out of battle? Cool in theory when it comes to fighting mobs. But I played pk for a number of years, and I remember how frustrating it was chasing after someone who fled, and then recalled. It's even worse when you cant even catch the person before they recall, they just touch their forehead and wiggle their nose *poof* they're safe in their cit. Excuse the crudeness of my language, but thats a pansy ass move. Please don't put it on. Or if you do, disable it for when fighting pvp.

5. I've never really played any other races. I'd love to pull random unsupported opinions out of my butt, unfortunately for y'all I'm tired. So, my official stance on everything else is, "No Comment"

And although I do wish now that I made a different race for Laurana, I'm sure that in time, the uber races will be powered down, and the people who are searching for the next big power class/race combo, will forget about their e50 swashies, and move on to something else. Meanwhile, I'll just keep building up my existing chars, evolve with the changes and still be more badass then the pixies/gnomes at the end of the day :)

In conclusion, (crap, i just realized I was intending to make this quick.... I hope I at least managed to form coherent sentences in my delusive, sleep-addled brain. If I didn't manage to achieve this feat, please excuse it on the account of my sleepiness.)

oh yeah, in conclusion. Elves are good as they are. Phasians are blue humans. Gnomes are overpowered. And Pixies taste good dipped in batter and fried.

hrm... i think i remembered anything.

You may now return to your originally programmed flame war :)


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 Post subject: uh huh
PostPosted: Sun Sep 26, 2004 4:27 pm 
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i gotta agree with laurie, and say, don't mess with my elf, she is pretty like she is, and i like her.

i don't require stat bonuses and magical resistance, i like having pointy ears, they are cute.

i also like my human voider, she is also cute, and dislikes magic, magic scares her, bad mages!

i also have lizardwomen, ogres, trolls, and dwarves, all of whom i enjoy playing.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Sep 27, 2004 1:15 pm 
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Elves are still too powerful. Why do you people keep denying this?

Just because they are a mediocre and well rounded race in comparison to the other races right now doesn't mean they are well balanced when looked at as an individual.

Another thing to look at. Pixies are the best at magic, this should always be true regardless of the current racial balances.

Elves have +10% complexity. Which means pixies would probably have at least 15%?

Going along with that, Gnomes would probably have a magical ability less than elves, and all the other races messed with in some slight way.

There is a problem with this. A 10 - 15% bonus to magic is still uber enough to make Elves and Pixies better than any other race.Then Pixies and Elves become the best races. How is anything any different? This does not solve the balance problem of races.

+/- 5% or so should be PLENTY enough of a difference. It would keep them unique, and the difference between the races on a balance standpoint would be low enough so that you could pick whichever one you wanted without placing a handicap on yourself just because you picked a 'weak' race. Because there wouldnt BE weak races, they would be rougly even, or even enough so that it made no difference.

Suggested complexity bonuses:
Pixies: +5% magic complexity
Elves: +2% magic and +5% nature complexity
Trolls: -5% magic complexity
Gnomes: baseline


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 Post subject: ah
PostPosted: Mon Sep 27, 2004 5:25 pm 
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forgive me, i was under the impression you were saying elves sucked, my bad :)


if i had to choose, i would choose elves as a template race, and build all the others around them


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Sep 27, 2004 8:14 pm 
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Alright, I guess it's time to list my ideas for the new and vastly less extreme and far more balanced races!

Not only would these make your racial decision far more cosmetic, but it would increase the difficulty of the game for the better races. Which, as a lot of caretakers and quite a few players have expressed, is a good thing.

Human Starsigns:
Voids: Leave as is, but make sure they can use regen potions and such.
Avatar: The problem with this race has more to do with the way favor works and less with the race itself. If there were other, more common ways to drop below 0 favor than changing deities, then this could be a balanced race.
Tower: +5 innate mobility, and 5 additional spaces on the map.
Furnace: +3 complexity to all.
Unicorn: Leave as is.
Clover: Leave as is.
Waterfall: Innate 99% instead of 25%, and in addition, make it not count against your resistance cap.
Cyclone: Same as waterfall.
Landslide: Same as waterfall.
Sun: Same as waterfall.
Moon: Just get rid of this one.
Fist: 2 AR innate, and +2 damage roll per level, ending at 2 AR and 100 damage roll at 50, totalling 21,000 enchant space. Thanks Avestifal.
Guardian Spirit: Remove maybe?
Comet: This is the one of the two that I no real ideas with.
Shadow: Remove.
Hospic: Leave as is.
Shield: Leave them the MR, and give them +2 mobility at the start, and 1 damage reduction per level until 50.
Reed: Remove.
Beauty: Remove.

Troll: -5% complexity. Leave the rest, might need to nerf their limb regen?

Dwarf: Leave as is.

Phasian: Make the sigil enchantable, with 6k space, that cannot be severed off. In addition, give them a command that allows them to 'cover their sigil', that gives them +6 luck for 10 mins, once per hour, and it would also raise their max luck by 6.

Orc: Leave the feral rage, and give them +5 HP per level up to 250. Thanks Avestifal

Gerp: Leave as is.

Lizardmen: This is the other one I had no good ideas with. Maybe some sort of tail attack? It would have to be pretty decent and usable though...Hmm...

Ogre: +5% Body magic, +2 Hp per level, up to 100.

Elf: +2% magical complexities, +5% nature magic.

Pixie: +5% magical complexities, leave the rest.

Gnome: Kill off the complexity bonus, leave the rest as is.

And that about sums it up, despite Comets and Lizardmen. Any ideas people? Comments? Questions? Please, feel free!

~Ocardus/Ridley


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 Post subject: what i would do
PostPosted: Mon Sep 27, 2004 10:14 pm 
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This is what i think

Human Starsigns:
Voids: Leave as is
Avatar: ?
Tower: +50 innate Damage Reduction, and 7 additional spaces on the map.
Furnace: +3 complexity to all.
Unicorn: Leave as is.
Clover: Leave as is.
Waterfall: Innate 60% instead of 25%
Cyclone: Same as waterfall.
Landslide: Same as waterfall.
Sun: Same as waterfall.
Moon: ?
Fist:?
Guardian Spirit: summon a gardian spirit at will to distract enemies
Comet: ?
Shadow: auto hide and make it undetectable unless the shadow soes a social, emote, move, or say something in a room.
Hospic: ?
Shield: Leave them the MR, and give them +2 mobility at the start, and 2 damage reduction per level until 50.
Reed:?
Beauty: pay no 75% less tax when shop at npc shops...kinda like having 50 charisma

Troll: -20% complexity. Faster limb regen. 1 regeneration per level till level 50. -20% fire, +20% ice. 1 Damage Reduction per level till level 50. lower intell, charisma, and wisdom upon character creation.

Dwarf: ability to inspect 2 walls away. lower gems/ores pop rate as before and give a +5% to all mining skills.

Phasian: ability rune rw out of battle with time delay

Orc: extra HP, Feral Rage should kick in randomly not near death.

Gerp: what's a gerp?

Lizardmen: aqua breath. acquire trolls regeneration power, but very slowly. Also, no blood lost from losing limbs. In addition, have the ability to blend in the sourrounding(i dont know how this will work but it sounds cool). -10% to all elemental spells(like fire/water...) because cold blooded animals cant control their body temperature so they get screwed.

Ogre: i dont know what an ogre is. ?

Elf: Keep as they are.

Pixie: -30% wind. -immune to Earthquate if they are not already. +20% complexities. + major mobility bonus. + intell, +wisdom, +charisma, +dex, - strengths, -25% in all physical resistance (imagine a pixie the size of a mouse get slam with a giant granite hammer...)

Gnome: ?


I know it's not perfect, but that's what i have in mind.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Sep 27, 2004 10:18 pm 
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I like my setup better =P


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Sep 27, 2004 11:45 pm 
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Lingolas I have modified my pixie with glory so that it is 10'10"... so stop basing pixies on size... since it can be modded :)

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